Penny Hancock

Novelist, Short-story writer, Non-fiction writer

Penny Hancock is a novelist, short story writer, journalist and teacher. Her first novel Tideline (Simon and Schuster 2012), a psychological thriller exploring what happens when a middle aged woman takes a teenage boy captive in her home, was a Richard and Judy summer read in 2012. Her subsequent novels, The Darkening Hour, about a woman who takes her domestic worker slave, and A Trick of the Mind, about a young woman haunted by a hit and run incident, have been published to critical acclaim. Her novels are influenced by her interest in psychology and examine how everyday lives may spiral out of control as a result of one misguided decision. She writes short stories published here and in the USA and articles for the national press. She teaches a creative writing class entitled ‘Breakthrough’ for new novelists who need impetus to finish their work. Before becoming a novelist, Penny wrote for the Cambridge University Press English readers scheme (graded fiction for learners of English as a Foreign Language). Her readers explore issues such as bereavement, single parent adoption, and the plight of asylum seekers. Her reader ‘Within High Fences’ received an Extensive Reading Foundation award. She also wrote ‘Pebbles,’ a scheme for young children learning English as a Foreign Language. Penny has lived in Italy, Greece and Morocco teaching English, worked for several years as a primary school teacher in inner London, and has taught English to asylum seekers. She has three children and now lives just outside Cambridge.